In addition to supporting Democrat Joe Lieberman over Republican Alan Schlesinger in Connecticut, President Bush is supporting the Democrat over the Republican in Rhode Island, too. In the Republican primary, Bush supports Lincoln Chafee -- who votes with Bush on the important issues less often than Sen. Lieberman does -- over the only actual Republican in the race, Stephen Laffey.

Apart from Bush, the only person who hasn't figured out that Lincoln Chafee is a Democrat is Lincoln Chafee. As the expression goes, if Chafee switched parties, the average IQ on both sides of the aisle would go up.

It's hard to figure why Bush would support a half-wit like Lincoln Chafee. Maybe he believes his own poll numbers and is trying to help the conservatives by endorsing their opponents.

After Chafee's family money got him into Andover and Brown, he made his living shoeing horses for seven years. In fact, I've often wondered if an errant kick to the head by one of his charges would account for Chafee's rudimentary cognitive abilities.

That remains Chafee's only professional accomplishment -- unless you include the "fun zone" for kids on his official Senate Web site. Perhaps we could install a "play zone" like they have at McDonald's in the Senate well to keep Chafee occupied while the real senators go about their business.

When the farrier business proved too taxing for Chafee's intellect, he went into the family business -- politics. His father died in office, and Lincoln was appointed by the governor to serve out the remainder of Pop's term in the U.S. Senate. (I know Rhode Island is small, but couldn't they find someone who reads books right side up to fill the seat?) In terms of qualifications for the job, Chafee makes Michael Brown look like Donald Rumsfeld.

Chafee is everything the Democrats like to claim Republicans are, which we are not and they are: silver-spoon morons who get ahead on the basis of family connections (for example, Ned the Red Lamont in Connecticut).

The only reason Chafee calls himself a Republican is that he believes that everyone above a certain income level is required by law to do so.

In addition to the Democratic trait of having absolutely no idea how wealth is generated, Chafee's other Democratic characteristics include:

supporting gay marriage;

supporting abortion;

opposing the war in Iraq;

opposing tax cuts.

Stop complaining about taxes -- just live off your trust fund like a normal person! Taxes, I note, have virtually no bearing on someone who is not currently earning an income but living off incomes earned generations ago by better men than he.

Chafee even voted against Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court.

Republicans are always told we're supposed to vote for Fidel Dumbo if he has an "R" after his name so Republican nominees will be confirmed to the Supreme Court. That is true: Save terrorism, there is no more important issue than a president's Supreme Court nominees. But Bush had two Supreme Court nominees and Chafee voted against 50 percent of them, so Chafee doesn't even have that argument going for him.

Chafee explained his vote against Alito -- but for John Roberts -- by invoking the Democrats' idiotic talking point about maintaining "balance" on the court.

"Balance," like "meaningful consultation with the Senate before choosing the nominee," means precisely one thing: a Republican is in the White House. Democrats subscribe to the Brezhnev doctrine: "What we have, we hold." Their interpretation of elections they win by a plurality is that they have a mandate for Ruth Bader Ginsburg; their interpretation of elections they lose is that this means they get to block all Republican nominees.

Steve Laffey is the molecular opposite of Chafee: He is smart, self-made -- and a Republican. He is one of five children and was the first member of his family to go to college -- Bowdoin College, and then on to Harvard Business School. He was president of a brokerage firm, a position he acquired by hard work and native talent, not by attending his father's funeral.

Laffey is the sort of decent, talented person that makes you wonder why he would bother entering an irritating profession like politics. But he did, becoming mayor of Cranston, R.I., when the city was near bankruptcy. Within two years, Laffey had raised Cranston's bond rating from the lowest in the country to investment grade, earning him the sobriquet "the anti-Dennis Kucinich."

True, Rhode Island is an overwhelmingly Democratic state, and the chances of any Republican winning the general election are slim. But that's no reason for the Republican Party to debase itself by running someone dysfunctional and illiterate enough to appeal to Democrats.